Amazing Cows

Sandra Boynton
never runs out of silliness.

This particular book parses cowmedy into many forms.

The jokes that run through it about on the order of

my pun above, but the true humor lies in Boynton's 

unmatchable animals and whimsy.

But my boy likes the puns and the word play, and

the sheer absurdity of the stories, songs, and jokes.

Particularly the cow comic book which riffs on the

Superman tropes inimitably (in its imitation). 

What my boy remembers from the book:

Amazing Cows

Red Rover, Red Rover, let which cow named Tino come over? 

There were 80 cows named Tino. 

“Moo revoir.” 

“Bob, Bob, black sheep, have you any wool? ... little kid who lives dow th-MOOOOOOOOOO!” 

“Cock-a-doodle won’t do.” 

Counselor Phil was teaching his campers to be a cow until he said “Quackity-quack” 
“Johan Sebastian BOCKBOCKBOCK” 
“Egg-cattlepillar-cowcoon-udderfly”

Asterix the Gaul

My son took my Asterix comics off my shelves earlier than I meant to share them. These silly, witty, comically violent,* comic books spoof the historical period of Julius Caesar from the French

(pardon me, Gaulish) perspective of Asterix's indomitable village,

surrounded by Roman fortified camps filled with highly trained,

disciplined legionaries terrified by the rowdy villagers filled to the brim with brio and magic potion.

Hard to say what exactly my son makes of all this. He loves puns, and the books are filled with them. The plots mix up history that he is still learning. The plots follow Hitchcock's McGuffin rule, 
the characters are all after the same object. This is much easier 
to follow than stories with more emotional subtext.
Comic books tend to focus on a simple clash of protagonist and
antagonist. And the pictures help give information about
vocabulary or concepts that might otherwise delay the reader.
Most importantly, the books entice the reader. As witness my 
falling apart Asterix books.

*Biff! Paff! Pow! (No one ever dies, everyone walks away (eventually) from the fight.

-Spectrum Mom

Think Pun Thoughts

Here's a book recommendation direct from my son:
Jon Agee's Mr. Putney’s Quacking Dog 
“I like it because of the very funny jokes.”
Agee really appeals to my boy because
of the word play. Like many of Agee's books,
Putney dispenses with conventional
narrative to better indulge in 
outrageous word related silliness.
Putney lives with a wacky menagerie
of animals who often make
themselves useful in punny ways.
Each morning, Putney's alarmodillo wakes
him for another day playing with his
anteloop and taking care of his poor
ill hippospotamus.
My ten year old loves this book and 
would have loved it any time these past
five years. I worried a little lest he fasten
on the jokes too strongly (as boys with or
without autism sometimes do) but he 
contents himself with occasionally
saying "Alarmodillo. Do you get it?"
or the like remark. 
This imaginary world works well for
kids who enjoy word based silliness
with a solid structure visible beneath
the nonsense.
-Spectrum Mom